Qualla: Eastwood, Nottinghamshire

Eastwood, Nottinghamshire: Introduction

Wed, 27 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Willednic at English Wikipedia, CC BY 3.0. Within easy walking distance of the house at 8a Victoria Street, Eastwood, where D. H. Lawrence was born on 11 September 1885, there were ten coal mines. His father went down one of them. The overwhelming majority of the local men did. Most of the women were housewives. Most of the boys were impatient to reach fourteen, the age at which the pit would take them too. This was the place Lawrence walked away from and could not stop writing about — a Nottinghamshire mining town on the Derbyshire border, eight miles northwest of Nottingham, where the coal seams ran almost to the surface and the smoke from the chimneys settled over the gardens.

Image: Willednic at English Wikipedia | CC BY 3.0

Eastwood, Nottinghamshire: A Clearing in Sherwood

Wed, 27 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Leeds543, CC BY-SA 3.0. Eastwood is one of those English place-names that argues with itself. Est is Old English for east; Þveit is Old Norse for a cleared meadow, the same word that turns up in dozens of northern village names as 'thwaite'. So Eastwood probably means eastern clearing — most likely a Vi...

Image: Leeds543 | CC BY-SA 3.0

Eastwood, Nottinghamshire: Ten Pits in Walking Distance

Wed, 27 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Trevor Rickard, CC BY-SA 2.0. The Industrial Revolution arrived early. By 1880 the population had reached 4,500, with the steepest density growth of any parish in Nottinghamshire. The Midland Railway was formed at Eastwood. Framework knitting, corn milling, brick making, brewing, and rope making all set up sh...

Image: Trevor Rickard | CC BY-SA 2.0

Eastwood, Nottinghamshire: The Collier's Son

Wed, 27 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Andy Jakeman, CC BY-SA 2.0. Arthur Lawrence was a coal miner. His wife Lydia had been a schoolteacher before her marriage, and read books, and wanted something else for her four sons. The youngest, David Herbert, attended Greasley Beauvale Primary School, won a county council scholarship to Nottingham High ...

Image: Andy Jakeman | CC BY-SA 2.0

Eastwood, Nottinghamshire: The Tram That Frightened Him

Wed, 27 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Kate Jewell, CC BY-SA 2.0. Lawrence grew up not just inside an industrial landscape but on top of one. He lived next to the tram line that ran between Nottingham, Ripley, and Heanor in the early 1900s, and described it as the most dangerous tram service in England — a rattling open-top service that lurched...

Image: Kate Jewell | CC BY-SA 2.0

Eastwood, Nottinghamshire: After the Coal

Wed, 27 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Stephen McKay, CC BY-SA 2.0. In the 1951 census, 11.5% of Eastwood worked in mining and quarrying. By 2001, that figure had fallen to 0.15%. Eastwood Hall, once the headquarters of British Coal, is now a hotel and conference centre. The slag heap visible from the town is called locally dot hill, dirt hill, o...

Image: Stephen McKay | CC BY-SA 2.0